Web Design Client Manual

A SIMPLE REFERENCE GUIDE THAT EXPLAINS OUR WEB DESIGN PROCESS

When you’re starting any project one of the first things you read, and often come back to during the process, is the manual. Whether you’re building a bike, setting up that desk from IKEA who’s name you can’t pronounce, or playing a board game for the first time we all use instructions every day.

Working with a web designer is no different. While it’s our job to be experts, you might be feeling lost or overwhelmed with the process. Where was that file supposed to go again? What passwords do I need to give my designer? TeamWork? What’s that?

We get it. You’re excited about your new website, but there’s a lot that seems like a foreign language if you’re not familiar with the process.

We’ve got you covered.

Simply refer to this guide whenever you’re stuck or need help remembering how we build your beautiful project.

Let’s get started!

DISCOVERY

Discovery is where the web design process starts. The idea for the website is presented and we work together to collect assets for the project.

Discovery Meeting We’ll walk through a guided conversation in this first meeting to make sure we have the basic details of the project in mind before developing a quote for you.

Project Proposal Once we’ve discussed the basics of your project we will put together a web design quote. In this quote you will find several pieces of information including:

An overview of our design process

Your project’s specific focus points

An estimated timeline

Project tasks

Total project cost

Recommended add-ons

Signed Agreement and Deposit Once a quote has been approved, you will be sent a contract to sign and your first invoice. When these two items are addressed, we’re ready to get started.

Introduction to Applications As soon as we kick off your project we’ll get you set up with a couple applications that help us communicate, share files, and stay on track with the project.

TeamworkPM This application tracks all of our tasks, deadlines, and messages. You will receive an email with your login credentials at the start of your project. Google Drive Google Drive allows us to share images, documents, and all other types of files with each other throughout the web design process. You will receive an invitation to collaborate at the start of your project.

Strategy Meeting During this meeting we will gather more information to determine the design and structure of your project. Together, we will create a site map (the pages in your projects and how they will be organized) to give us an outline for your website.

If you’re not using our copywriting services, we’ll also talk about the content of your website. What do you want your visitors to know and how do you want to say it to them? With your site map as our guide, we’ll dive into each page and start to come up with ideas for content that you can work on while we’re designing your project.

Gathering Assets

Now that we’re working on a project together, we’ll want to gather all of your physical and digital assets that will help fill out your website. These include: Your logo (preferably in .eps or vector format)

At this time we’ll send you an online form to collect logistical information – i.e. contact and billing information, hosting, domain, social media, and other account logins – to complete our asset gathering. We’re now ready to move into the design stage.

DESIGN STAGE

In the design stage we will find supporting imagery and stylistic elements for your web project. We’ll start to discuss the content that will fill your site and we’ll create design mockups that will be the blueprint for the development of your website.

Wireframe (depending on project?) Otherwise referred to as the blueprint. This is where the visual layout of the website begins to take shape by using frames and symbolic items to represent the layout. Using information gathered from the client we’ll create a wireframe using tools like Adobe Photoshop.

Designing the Initial Mockup Using the wireframe as our guide we’ll build an image of what the website will look like. This will include your logo, images, colors, and fonts. You will receive a mock-up of the homepage and any unique pages that were wireframed in the previous step.

Design Revisions Once we’re done with the initial mockup, we’ll schedule a time to review it with you by phone or in the office. Right now, we will be primarily focused on the look and feel of the design, not so much on details such as what the site says or how it works.

We will revise your design twice to land on the final design – so please be sure to include as much helpful feedback during these revision meetings so we can keep the project on track, on time, and on budget. You will have 48 hours after each meeting to send further changes, within scope, that were not discussed during the review.

Any changes to the design moving forward made after these two revisions will be entered into our work order system and charged on a time and materials basis.

BUILD

Once we’re all set on the look and feel of the website, it’s time to move into development. At this stage in the project, it takes much longer to make changes to how the website is set up, so we want to be quite sure we are happy with how things are at this point before moving forward.

Website Development Area

To begin development we will create a private development area online to build your project. Using a unique link, you can preview the development progress. Your development area link will be in the format: dev-yourcompanyname.legendaryliondevelopment.com, but don’t worry about remembering this. We’ll send you the link and you can always access it through TeamWorkPM.

Development Revisions

Once we’re done with the initial development, we’ll schedule a time to review it with you by phone or in the office. We will revise your development area twice to land on the final product – so please be sure to include as much helpful feedback during these revision meetings so we can keep the project on track, on time, and on budget. You will have 48 hours after each meeting to send further changes, within scope, that were not discussed during the review.

Any changes made after these two revisions will be entered into our work order system and charged on a time and materials basis.

Cross-Platform Testing

All of our projects are designed responsively, which means that they respond to tablet and mobile phone displays. At this stage we ensure that your site looks beautiful and functions as expected no matter what kind of device you’re using.

Similarly, we develop our sites using the Chrome browser. Sometimes, Internet browsers interpret and view website code differently. Near the end of your project, we will ensure your site looks and functions the same across all supported platforms.

Final Website Approval

Once the website is completed in the development area, we will prepare to migrate the website to the active domain name (yourdomainname.com) in the Deployment Stage.

LAUNCH

Training Before we hand over the site to you we want to make sure you know how to navigate your way around the administrative dashboard and make small changes on your site. If you cannot schedule this training pre-launch you have 7 days post launch to schedule a training session.

Final Payment Final payment is required before the website is migrated live and the access is granted to the live project.

Activation The project is activated and access is granted to you, the proud new owner of your website!

POST LAUNCH

Maintenance Websites can become vulnerable to attack over time as those with malicious intentions figure out ways to exploit older platforms. We update websites as part of our hosting package. If you host elsewhere, however, we do not offer this service.

Work Orders Any additional requests, tasks, or edits will be entered into our work order system and billed based upon estimated task hours.